


Improv.

by UlsPi



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: First Time, Fix-It, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Getting Together, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27686048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UlsPi/pseuds/UlsPi
Summary: Ciri thinks Geralt has to make amends with everyone, and so Geralt does.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 7
Kudos: 112





	Improv.

Damn Ciri and her courtly education. 

Damn Eist having gone all dreamy and in love when he talked to Ciri about Calanthe. Of all things to get dreamy and in love about. 

Damn Ciri's spending so much time in the streets to get really street smart. 

Damn Jaskier's tales of heroics and heartbreak which he told Ciri every damn year when he visited Cintra, unbeknownst to Geralt. 

Damn Ciri's heightened sense of justice. 

Damn Geralt himself for getting so soft in Ciri's company that he just went and told her everything - his childhood, his training, his bard, his sorceress. Geralt had never thought he'd have anything, and now he had a bard, a sorceress and a daughter. 

Damn it. 

***

Ciri, having listened to Geralt's stories, insisted on Geralt's  _ redemption.  _ Or  _ atonement.  _ She was really good with all those long words Jaskier loved so much. Oh, they'd get on like a house on fire and they'd mock Geralt for trying to put the fire down. Damn it!

"We need to get you to safety!" Geralt argued as he followed Ciri. "Safety is the other way!" He uselessly pointed in the direction opposite to the one they had been taking.

"You can't start a new life being indebted!" Ciri replied. Her words made Geralt gasp in recognition - she was repeating her own father's words just seconds before Geralt claimed her… Oh, why did Destiny have to have so much fun playing with Geralt?

***

Finding Yennefer wasn't difficult. They had been traveling together for less than two days - and boom, there was Yennefer, weakened and furious, about to be taken prisoner. Ciri screamed, which wasn't nice or wise at all. 

Well, all those silly people who tried to imprison Yennefer of fucking Vengerberg, just kind of… 

Wasn't a pretty picture, even for Geralt and Yennefer. 

Ciri spent some minutes being appropriately scared of her powers, but she wasn't scared enough, in Geralt's opinion, she felt far too safe in his company.

"Hello!" Ciri began, with a blinding smile. "I'm Ciri, and you're Yennefer. I believe Geralt has a debt to settle with you."

Yennefer looked between the Witcher and the lion cub of Cintra. 

"I don't like failing to understand what the fuck is going on," Yennefer said. 

"Geralt is here to apologise!" Ciri announced and waved at Geralt. She even coughed to make her so called hint clear as day.

"Hm… I'm sorry, Yennefer?" Geralt tried. 

"No, no, more feeling," Ciri demanded.

"How much time did she spend with that…" Yennefer coughed having caught Ciri's frown. "With… the bard?"

"Enough time," Ciri replied. "He's our next stop. Now, do you forgive Geralt, or do I have to make him… kneel? Or something else equally dramatic?"

Yennefer quickly acknowledged Geralt's regret. 

In the following days they bickered endlessly about Jaskier and his influence on impressionable children, whenever Ciri was asleep.

"You did what?" Yennefer yelled once she had got the picture, so to speak. "You… Geralt, no one sends a lovely puppy packing! Even I wouldn't do that! One has to wait until the puppy grows up and becomes a… you know. A proper hound. Or an awkward teenage dog. Something!"

"Why, thank you, Yennefer. You're also welcome for your life, you know."

There was a long pause between them.

"That's what Jaskier would have said," they concluded together. 

***

In the end it was easier to admit that there could be no arguing with Ciri, so Geralt and Yennefer just rolled with it. 

***

"Oh, yeah, sure, I knew he wasn't human. What, you didn't?" Yennefer laughed so hard she hiccuped by the end of it. 

"You said he had crows feet," Geralt growled. 

"I was just being mean. I'd love some of his creams all the same," Yennefer shrugged. Ciri glared. Geralt hated his life, but lovingly.

***

"Alright, you're a heartbroken bard. What would you do?" Ciri asked Yennefer. 

Geralt had decided that he wouldn't mess with them and just let them find Jaskier. Not that he was eager to face the bard. 

"I'd make a scene," Yennefer said. 

"Well, and afterwards?" Ciri asked impatiently.

"I'd… get lost in the most obvious place," Yennefer said. 

"So… bardic competition it is!" Ciri proclaimed. 

***

Geralt refused to come with them, so Yennefer portaled herself and Ciri to the nearest bardic competition. No, he wouldn't have had any fun there anyway, no, even if he got to listen to Jaskier's rivals. 

"I just know that they could never compare!" Geralt shrugged - and remembered himself. Both Ciri and Yennefer sent him a smirk and walked through the portal.

"Fuck!" Geralt cursed. 

***

A few hours later Ciri and Yennefer came back via a portal, dragging Jaskier with them. 

Jaskier had put up a fight, even if it was perfunctory. Yennefer seemed to have come to respect the bard a bit more, and Ciri was having too much fun. 

*** 

Stylistic consistency is for those without style, just saying. I'm a layered cake, I can be Proust and Chekhov and Wilde and sometimes I get properly epic, as in Iliade. It's a sort of a warning, you see. 

***

Geralt comes to think that Borch is not a very insightful dragon. Why would Geralt be afraid to let Jaskier out of his sight, if Jaskier is a fucking sun? When it's bright and warm around, it means that Jaskier is just fine. Jaskier is warmth and sunshine and smiles and gentle touches and so many things that require the use of long and complex words that Geralt doesn't like very much. Named things tend to slip through Geralt's fingers, so he starts avoiding calling Jaskier  _ bard _ . Jaskier is Jaskier, and his name should be uttered in awe while no one is listening and therefore can't call Geralt out on his… hmmmm. 

Jaskier is a fucking invaluable traveling companion. He knows when Ciri is tired or when Yennefer wants to just get to her magical tent and relax there. He knows when Geralt is exhausted - and long before Geralt knows it himself. Jaskier is caring. Jaskier is sweet. Jaskier is everything Geralt has never dreamt of having  _ all to himself _ , and while Jaskier is understandably pissed with Geralt, while he barely talks to him, he still looks at Geralt tenderly, with loving understanding, with a glint in those unbearably blue eyes. 

Yennefer tries to lock them up in her tent and make them talk, but Jaskier breaks through every charm just by the force of his stubborn resolve. He's staying young because he's resolved to be so. He's staying naive and trusting and kind because he has made a decision to do so. No one would fight Jaskier, Geralt is sure of that. He might get into trouble and sleep with the wrong people, but he always finds a way out, and if that way is usually Geralt, then Geralt feels fucking honoured. 

Not that anyone needs to know that. 

So they travel to Kaer Morhen. Once they get there, everything changes.

***

Yennefer takes her leave almost immediately. As she puts it to Ciri, she can't stand so many Witchers (it's just four of them, but alright, perhaps she has a point) and she gave up on hoping that Jaskier and Geralt would figure  _ anything  _ out. She's not going to help two idiots. She wants to see them  _ suffer _ , but in a funny way. 

Ciri doesn't understand Yennefer completely, but she definitely gets the feeling. 

***

And enough of Ciri for now. 

***

Geralt is at home, so he's more relaxed, more unleashed even. It means he… lets himself go and be and whatever. He lets himself breathe. He can't keep his hands off of Jaskier, but it's not passion or innuendo, although it might be. It's more of a struggle to make sure Jaskier is there, Jaskier is shining upon him even in winter, when the days are mostly dark and gloomy, of which Geralt wouldn't know, because he touches Jaskier in passing, to steer him the right way, to guide him somewhere, to wrap a fur around those shoulders… They are not weak, those shoulders, but Geralt wants to protect every piece of his summery bard from the cold.

Geralt still hasn't apologised for the mountain, but he's too ashamed of himself to apologise, and that's why he decides to act. He's careful, he's gentle, he pushes the best portions of food to Jaskier, he doesn't let Lambert tease Jaskier and he doesn't let Eskel spend too much time talking literature with Jaskier.

One night they go to their rooms, and Jaskier's room is right next to Geralt's, with Ciri's room on the other side of Geralt's and Jaskier holds Geralt's wrist. 

"Darling," Jaskier calls softly. Geralt melts, right there, in the frozen hall, while there's nothing but blizzard and hungry wolves outside. "You're forgiven, Geralt. You're always forgiven and accepted." Jaskier opens his arms just a bit - and he must be freezing, he's only wearing his shirt, because he has been singing and drinking, and he smells of soap and fancy oils and fire and Geralt's home. 

Geralt is no damsel, but he collapses into Jaskier's arms all the same. He wants to stay there, to make amends, to make love, to tell Jaskier that he was foolish, that he ignored the only person in his life who wasn't to be ignored by any means. 

"It's alright, my love… it's alright. I'm yours," Jaskier whispers into Geralt's hair, holding and guarding him, warming the Witcher to the very core of his being. Geralt used to think there was nothing to warm there, but trust Jaskier to shine a light on the most arid place and turn it into an orchard. 

"Stay with me tonight, my darling. Stay with me tonight," Jaskier asks. 

Geralt thinks he replies something. He's just grunting. Yet, it's good enough for Jaskier. Geralt is good enough for Jaskier, which is ridiculous and silly and unreasonable, but Jaskier walks Geralt into his room. 

"I missed you… I've missed you my whole life, I've missed you since I saw you… oh darling."

Jaskier's room is hot, so it's alright to undress and face each other naked. 

Geralt guides Jaskier to push his hands into the wall by the fireplace, where it's especially hot. Geralt kisses down Jaskier's spine, kisses his arse, which has to be shocking and gross but isn't, because it's Jaskier. 

Geralt kisses Jaskier's ears and temples, finds his lips, moans into that witty, annoying mouth. 

"You take me," Jaskier says into the kiss, "and you never let me go."

To Geralt it feels like that: if he ever lets Jaskier go, there will be no spring and no summer, no happiness or light. Everything will be wrong in the world, if he ever lets Jaskier go. 

"Please don't go…" Geralt begs as his fingers push inside his bard. "Please don't go… please don't go." Geralt holds him closer, Geralt doesn't really know what's happening, he's confused and silly. 

"Now… now I know," Jaskier tells him, leaning into Geralt's touch, pushing down on Geralt's fingers. "You don't have to say it. I know."

Geralt bites Jaskier's shoulder to hide his sob. Jaskier coos over him. 

When they are moving, they are moving together in the hot air, standing and flowing and flying. This is silly, but Geralt likes being so with Jaskier. 

"You're so perfect, my love," Jaskier says. His face is pressed into Geralt's neck, and his arms are over Geralt's arms. 

And his front is awkwardly pushed into the wall, but it's fine. 

"Should have used bed," Geralt grunts. 

"Should have been doing it for years, darling…. I love you, Geralt. I love you so much."

Geralt can only grunt. 

He can't grunt anymore, he's whining and moaning, and holding, holding, holding, holding so close and so tight. 

"Shine on me," he says in the end, quite witless and mad. "Shine on me, Jaskier."

"Won't shine on anyone else, love."

Geralt wants to crawl inside the bard and curl there and stay there - but he also wants the bard to be hidden and sheltered somewhere between his ribs, to found a kingdom by Geralt's heart. 

Instead he carries Jaskier over to the bed and cuddles him.

"I won't sleep anywhere else from now on," Jaskier promises. "I will cling to you so hard!"

Geralt can only… sob? Moan? Laugh? Definitely agree. 

They fall asleep together and wake up together. 

That's how it goes for the rest of their lives. 

  
  



End file.
